The Damned
by The Awesome Novice Writer
Summary: With monsters at every turn, both infected and not, I've discovered one thing about this world. Since this whole thing began, all we ever were was left for dead.
1. Chapter 1

Hunger.

That's what the folks inside the small, abandoned, family owned general store felt as they watched their meal boiling in front of them. Their eyes looking into the iron pot with a look that could only be described as a sort of lust that rivaled the primal desires that animals had when their prey was in front of them and ready to be taken down.

That emotion they were all feeling was a desire, pure and simple, and they wanted it fulfilled immediately.

The one that was mixing the food could feel his, virtually, empty stomach begging him to feed it, growling angrily at him while his mouth filled up with saliva as his nose mocked him with the smell of crushed tomatoes and hints of meat. It contrasted greatly against the smell of rotten trash , mildew, and burning rubber.

He wanted to dunk his head into the pot and suck up as much of the food as he could, but he kept it together as he knew that if he did what he so wanted to do, it would cause a rampage. And beside the fighting that would occur, the food would likely spill out of it's holder, and he didn't want that at all.

The five bodies all impatiently watched the thick, red sauce bubble and let off little wisps of steam as one of them continued to stir it with a newly found wooden spoon. The crackling fire underneath the large iron pot was doing it's job of cooking the food and keeping them warm. The thin metal pole acted as a cooking spit that held the pot over the flames.

The smoke that was creating carbon monoxide was being largely ignored by the group, and the figure that was stirring the sauce. He didn't feel much of the symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning, so he decided that they still had a while before they had to open the door once again and let in fresh air.

It was a blissful situation to them, and they all couldn't wait to start eating. One of them then asked the question that was on all their minds.

"How much longer?" He practically whinnied as he held his purple Tupperware lunch box in front of the cook, showing that it was empty and he wanted it filled. He tapped the edge of the plastic container on the pot, letting everyone hear it's hollow clunk. The cook only grunted in annoyance, knowing that they were all wanting to dive into the food as soon as possible, himself included.

"Just hold on a couple more minutes." He told him as he waved his free hand in front of the beggars' face, resisting to just hand out the food already and start chowing down. He also felt like punching him in the face. He was hungry, he knew that everyone else was hungry as well, and the sight of edible food so close in front of them was enough to get their stomachs to growl angrily at them, asking them why they weren't being feed already, but he didn't want to hand out the food just yet.

"You said that five minutes ago," The beggar informed him.

"Well I didn't think it would of taken that long for it to come to a boil," The stirrer told him with annoyance in his voice. To them, it seemed to take forever for it to just heat up, then there was the process of it coming to a boil to actually cook the food that they were cooking. "Just hold on for a little bit longer."

"But I'm starving." He complained, getting a rise out of the cook.

"We're all fucking starving!" He spoke loudly, but didn't shout, in anger, he knew better then to yell, but he spoke louder then everyone seemed comfortable with. "Do you really think that I'm not hungry right now? That because I haven't eaten a full meal in nearly a god damn week, that I'm not in the least hungry?"

The other group members looked tense, like they were ready for a scuffle to happen, though two of them looked a lot more concerned then the third outsider.

The cook then stopped stirring all together as frustration and hunger got the better of him as he practically threw the stirring utensil into the red sauce. "Whatever. Everyone, dig the fuck in."

"Hooray." A girl's voice cried out in an almost impassive voice as she stuck her right hand, which was covered with a thick grey glove that had now turned a reddish-brown colour, into the semi-hot mixture, and lifted out a handful of food before dumping it into her plastic container. Nobody commented about the girl sticking her hand into the food as they filled their containers up with food.

"There's raw meat in there," Another one of the group members reminded them. "You think it's wise to eat it before it's completely ready?"

"We've eaten worse." The manager of the pot reminded him as thoughts of rotten and moldy food past the expiration date came to mind. Though not everything was rotten or moldy, there were things that they wouldn't of normally eaten under normal circumstances. But they were past that, and ate just about anything that they thought was edible and wouldn't kill them.

"But it's raw meat we're talking about here," The biggest group member reminded again, looking at each other them one at a time with concern. "We're talking about salmonella poisoning that could lead us to some very nasty situation. Or death."

It was a thought that the other boy took in, but cast aside as he smelt the food he had been cooking and watched the other members of the group fill up plastic containers of homemade chili. Or as close to homemade as he could get to in this day and age. Though the others had stopped collecting up their food to think about what the cautious guy had just told them, they only thought about it for a second before discarding the though in exchange for an immediate meal.

"Look," The cook said as he scooped up a bit of the mixture with the corner of his Tupperware container and let the lunch box fill up before he searched for a tiny piece of meat inside the red sauce. When he did find a piece, he picked it up and held it up to the cautious guy. "These pieces were cut up so small that I'm sure they've been cooked at least ninety percent of the way, and people ate medium rare and rare steak all the time in those fancy smancy restaurants."

"I don't think that's the same thing." The big group member said with worry as he looked at the other members eating the chow with hunger and glee.

"Well if it worries you so much, the fire's still going. Wait another few minutes before eating, and stir the pot while your at it." The former chef told him as he dunked his plastic box into the chili and pulled out a mostly full lunch box of food that covered the majority of the box and dripped some of the mixture back into the brew.

He licked the outside of the Tupperware, getting every single piece of sauce and canned beans and pieces of meat as he could, loving the taste of tomato sauce mixed with a special kind of meat, before heading over to where the other group members, save the cautious giant, were sitting down at.

Where they were sitting was only a little less then two steps away from the fire and the cooking pot, but it was colder there then it was near the fire. Stuck between two shelves layered with thick grey dust and random pieces of junk and brass bullet casings near the back of the store, it was an ideal place to set up the fire. It kept most of the fire's light from reaching the two windows at the front of the store, and it also gave them time to assemble in case any hostile figures burst into the store and tried to kill them.

They didn't have to worry about being spotted though, they had covered the windows with black tarps that were duct tapped onto the edges of the walls and doors. So the only way someone would know that they were there, was if they pressed their ear to the glass and heard them talking, or they entered the the store entirely. At least, that's what the group of five wanted to think.

The former chef sat down on the cold floor, beside the girl who had shoved her hand into the chili before pulling his balaclava up his chin and stopped the mask at the bridge of his nose to give his mouth room to eat without making a mess, but more importantly, not to waste any of the food. Pulling the mask up reveled his light brown skin and dry cracked lips with numerous scars and burns running down his upper and lower mouth along with the cheeks, jaw line, and neck.

"Hardly the hot meal that I was expecting." The complainer complained, making the former cook ever more mad at him. He was frustrated that he hadn't even taken off his gloves to begin eating before someone complained, and he was even more frustrated that it had to be him of all people.

"It's better then nothing." The boy beside him replied as he ate his chili with his hand, much like the rest of the group. "And it could be worse, I mean, we could literally be shit right now." He gave off a smile that had no effect on the other group members. The two older boys were more focused on each other and didn't seem to hear the words coming from their youngest member.

"Then you should of let me do my job and waited for another minute or two, jackass." The brown skinned boy said with frustration. "Instead, you bitched and moaned about how fucking hungry you are, and surprise surprise, your bitching and moaning again like a god damn diva."

"Well you should learn to cook faster," The complainer retorted. "Any slower and we might as well be in the fucking ice age when your finally done with your shitty ass food."

"The fuck you say about my food?" The brown skinned boy asked as he quickly put his Tupperware on the floor and stood up. "If I'm not mistaken, you wanted to have chili, like the rest of us. You even helped pick out the ingredients." Even though there were only few ingredients to choose from in the first place.

"Well if I knew that you'd turn everything into shit," The complainer said, also placing, though a better word would be slamming, his lunch box on the floor before he stood up, facing the other boy. "I wouldn't of said anything at all."

"Hey," The young group member said with surprising haste, placing his lunch box on the floor at the same time as he stood up, spilling a little bit of the chili onto the dirty floor. He got between the two group members who were facing each other hostility. Both of the pissed off boys were glaring at each other like bulls ready to charge at each other at the slightest problem, no matter how much it didn't make sense. "We don't need a fight right now."

It was funny that he should be the one standing between the two fighters as the Japanese-American was shorter and had a lesser build then either one of them. And even though he had many scars and some burns on his face, everyone in the room knew that he wasn't going to be scaring the other boys.

"Piss off Wayne." The brown skinned boy told him hostility before he gave him a rough, single handed shove to the chest, sending him reeling backwards before Wayne crashed into the empty, metal aisle divider with a thud, getting it to rock slightly before it settled down again. The female just looked at her pushed comrade as he slide down the metal before his ass hit the floor, looking on like she had no interest in what was happening other then wanting to know what was happening for the sake of knowing.

"Don't think that you're tough because you can-" The beggar started, but didn't finish due to a sudden elbow to the face.

"You shut up as well!" The attacker said loudly before he grabbed the beggar and placed him into a headlock and started to punch him repeatedly in the face.

"Hey," A more authoritative voice shouted as a much bigger figure placed his hands between the two fighters and forced them apart. When the two brawlers separated from each other, they stumbled backwards, the beggar crashing into a wall, the attacker fell to the floor.

Standing nearly six and a half feet tall with the biggest build of all the group members, he was easily the one people would be more scared of from his height alone. The facial gap in his mask had been ripped down so that he could eat, reveling his black skin and thickish dark beard. Just like the rest of the group member, he had his fair share of scars and burns as well. "Both of you calm down, do you want to attract unwanted attention?" He asked, before the two fighters thought about what could be on the outer side of the building.

The brown fighter still wanted to fight and wasn't afraid of the hulking figure in front of him, but he was worried about the outside of the store. He knew that the pale skinned boy in front of him felt the same way.

The eyes of the fighters calmed down, but their anger hadn't been snuffed out just yet.

They looked hostility at each other for a second more before the brown skinned boy sniffed loudly.

"Another time." He told his ally as he glared at him.

"Another time." The other replied with equal rage as they both crawled to their spots and started to eat their semi-warm chili before it became as cold as it's name was. The two boys sat apart with the girl and Wayne between them. Wayne hadn't bothered to get back up and just watched the confrontation die down in front of him.

"Honestly guys," The giant sighed as he sat down to face all of them and ate his hot chili that, unlike the rest of the group's, was hot. "We've got enough problems outside without you two fighting it out."

The five group members looked at each other before the two fighters looked at each other like that wanted to say something to each other, or not say anything at all and continue to fight, but instead, they said nothing at all and left it at that. Anger didn't disappear quickly and because a few words were spoken.

"Sorry Wayne." The brown skinned boy said to the ally he had shoved in a fit of mild and sudden rage.

"Whatever." He said with a monotone voice, like it didn't even matter, as he slid back to his spot between the other fighter and the lone girl in the group. He didn't look hurt physically or emotionally. He just simply looked, down. Down at his food.

The brown skinned boy didn't like that he had shoved the young group member and felt irritation towards himself for his actions. He had been so consumed over a stupid argument that he shoved him away when he was just trying to help.

Silence then occurred as the group members seemed to refuse to talk to each other at the time. The only thing that they could hear was the sound of the fire crackling in front of them as it's red and orange flames, the only light source in the building, lit up the small area of the store they were sitting in, reveling the damage of looting, abandonment, and fighting when chaos had taken over the city. Brass bullets and plastic shells littered the floor, showing that people shot at each other. Blood was on the floor, walls, and in other areas of the store, showing that people had either been injured or killed, and out of sight of the five person team were bodies of the deceased, showing them that people had been killed before their bodies had been abandoned. The price to pay for either looting, or just showing up in the store of a hostile group, either that or the hostile group showed up and killed them before taking what they could carry.

Though everyone tried to take bullets, food, water, and bandages, the brown skin fighter was also surprised at what they didn't take. For example, nobody seemed to bother with vitamins, Pepto Bismol and NyQuil, just to name a few.

He hated to admit it, but he would of overlooked them as well if one of his group members, Harry, the guy he was going to have a brawl with, hadn't pointed out to him that they might need the items for one purpose or another. And so far, they had needed them for one purpose or another on more then one occasion. The vitamins, he heard, were also essential to their overall survival due to them not eating a lot, so they needed to get some nutrition into their bodies if they didn't want to kneel over and die.

The boy sighed before he reached for his backpack, unzipped it, and fished around for a bottle of vitamin C tablets. He wondered how many of them there were left inside the bottle as he pulled out said bottle of vitamin C pills.

He shook the plastic bottle, and heard an almost hollow sound coming from the bottle as pills clicked and clacked inside. He popped open the cap and poured the remaining pills into his hand. Six orange circles left the prison and landed onto his palm. He was disappointed with the amount left and worried about their health. Sure they came across canned fruit once in a while, but there were times where they didn't even eat anything for several days.

The saddened boy pulled out all the other medicines that he had in his backpack and checked to see how much of them they had left. Everything was running low, and he wasn't surprised, and neither were the rest of the group, disappointed as they were. Though the only girl in the group seemed to be less concerned then the rest of them were.

The boy then threw the items back into his backpack with frustration and was going to resume eating his meal when he noticed that the girl he was sitting beside was making a mess of her three hole balaclava. He sniffed before he started to help her.

"Cassie." He sighed as he reached over and gently grabbed the bottom of the mask and pulled it halfway up her face, allowing her to eat without making a mess. Unlike the other group members, her balaclava had a small mouth hole with the single purpose of making it easier to breathe through. He didn't notice that the mess wasn't only around the lip area of her mask, but also on the floor and on her lap. Eating with your fingers and shoving food into your mouth with said fingers was messy with a mouth hole too small for effective eating.

"What?" She asked with a tone that wondered what she had done wrong as she looked at him with almost blank blue eyes.

"You getting enough to eat?" He asked, wondering if she even knew what was going on.

"Yeah." She replied simply as she continued to eat like she hadn't even noticed that her mask had been raised up so that she could eat cleaner and not waste any more food.

"Good."

He smiled as he looked at the lone female and saw the numerous scars and burns across everything below her nose.

He then looked to the rest of his teammates and saw, once again, their injured faces from the fighting that they had encountered on various occasions outside the store. He also remembered how many times they had to sew the balclavas back together, or just ditched it and grabbed a fresh one as soon as they found one as it was easier then fixing half destroyed masks.

"Want it warmed up?" A voice asked as the boy broke his thoughts of the outside world.

"Huh?" He asked, before turning and facing Wayne, who was holding both his own Tupperware container as well as his attacker's.

"You want some warmed up chili?" Wayne asked, nodding her head towards the iron pot over the fire with the boiling mixture. "Or do you want to have your lukewarm stuff?"

The boy looked at Wayne, then the semi-warm chili, then the iron pot of boiling chili, then back at Wayne, and decided that he wanted a lunch box of hot chili rather then the stuff that he had already. It was cold, so a hot meal was something that he was looking forward to, until Harry had started to complain that he was hungry. But with that out of the way, he was now focused back on a hot meal.

"I'd like some hot chili, thanks." He answered with a smile, hopping that it would show Wayne that he wasn't really mad at him, that it was just the heat of the moment. Wayne smiled back at him slightly before he turned around and headed towards the boiling pot of food.

Wayne returned shortly with a hot lunch box of chili that let off little pillars of steam before handing the box to the guy that had shoved him. The boy took the lunch box from his teammate's hand, loving the warmth that spread through his bare hands.

He felt weird without his gloves on, his hands felt too thin and he didn't like the coldness that bit his skin when they were off. But they didn't have any silverware to eat with, so he had to take his gloves off in order to eat, unless he wanted to try and pour it down his mouth and make a huge mess and waste food, which he definitely didn't want to do, he knew how important food was now.

"How much are we allowed to eat?" Cassie asked, looking at the plastic box that had been licked clean.

"As much as you can." The brown skinned boy answered as he began to eat his own food.

"Yeah, eat until you explode so that we can eat you." Wayne chuckled. Nobody laughed at his weak attempt of humour.

"Yay." Cassie said with little emotion as she stood up and walked over to the iron pot. Wayne sighed in disappointment before he sat down in his spot again.

"That goes for everyone," The brown fighter announced to the entire group. "Eat as much as you can. This is our dinner, and since we have a large amount, we'll have it for breakfast tomorrow and hopefully have enough to fill up the plastic containers we have."

"Are we going to be stuffing ourselves in the morning?" The bearded guy asked. "Or are we going to be rationing the food?"

"We're just going to fill ourselves up tonight," The brown skinned boy answered, thinking of how bad an idea it would be to be running around with a full belly. "We'll be limiting ourselves again in the morning."

"Okay then." The black guy said, satisfied with the answer. Feeling as something was missing, the brown skinned boy asked

"Did I miss something, Nate?"

"Kind of," Nate answered, looking at the pot. "What if we can't carry all of that food when we leave this store in the morning?"

As much as they tried to save food, there was so much of that chili in there that it did look as if the group might have to abandon some of it, much to the disgust of almost all the group members when they heard those words.

"Abandon it I guess," The brown cook sighed with disgust as he looked at the pot filled with Hunt's canned tomato sauce, Goya red kidney beans, and meat. "As much as I hate to say it." They had been so happy to find those cans of tomato sauce, kidney beans, and finding meat that wasn't rotten that they didn't think about how much they were cooking, only that they were going to be eating after a week of only eating vitamins and painkillers. Now he regretted cooking a large quaintly of food, just so that they might have to dump it down the drain.

"Guess we better eat as much as we can," Wayne said as he eyed the pot of food. "Before the cockroaches come and start feasting in our food."

"I like cockroaches," Cassie told them. "They're like prawns."

The brown skinned boy sighed, but put on a little smile. Cassie wasn't on the same page as them, but he didn't really mind at the moment.

"They kind of are Cassie." He said as he started to eat his chili again.

"Hunter?" Cassie asked as she looked at her chili with her almost blank eyes.

"Yeah?" The brown skinned boy asked, wondering what she wanted.

"If you find any cockroaches, can you give them to me?"

"Sure." Hunter answered, knowing that she wasn't thinking the same things as the rest of the group was. "I will."

With that said, the group ate their dinner in silence, with only the crackle of fire and the little howl of wind outside.

* * *

Standing guard alone was boring and tiring, but Wayne was the only one suited to be guarding the store because of the condition the others were in. The four of them had been up for nearly three days straight and this was their first chance to get some sleep because of their narcotic withdrawal, and Wayne knew that they all needed those precious hours of sleep if they didn't want to kill themselves faster then they already were. Either that or go insane.

Wayne, checking the M16A2 assault rifle once again to kill time, did so in a slow fashion to make the most of it. He ejected the magazine, checked to see if there were any bullets inside the magazine, and saw the brass shells inside. The half Asian then pulled the bolt back and saw a single golden shell fall out of the chamber before landing on the ground with a metallic clink.

The boy then picked up the bullet, shoved it into the magazine with the rest of the bullets, slammed the magazine into the gun, and pressed the bolt release, chambering the first round into the gun.

Watching himself handing the assault rifle, he thought of his earlier days and how he didn't really know anything about guns except that you pull the trigger and they kill people. He knew how to reload them, but he hadn't known about bolt releases, he had always assumed that you pull back the bolt to chamber a round, just like the characters from a video game did. Same with handgun slides, he always thought that he'd just have to pull back the slide and a bullet would slide in, so he had been very surprised when he had pushed a pistol magazine into the butt of the gun, and the locked slide wouldn't snap back to allow him to fire anymore rounds at his attackers.

He laughed at his former self for not even knowing the basics of guns, or really, the basics of real guns before the apocalypse happened. In fact, he had never shot a gun before the apocalypse. Not that he had minded back then, but he now thought that a day at the ranges would of prepared him better for the situation he was in.

After readying the weapon again, Wayne stood up and walked over to the doors covered with black tarp before peeling a little bit of the covering away from the glass and looked outside to see if there was anything that he should know about.

Outside he saw white. It covered everything and was blowing all over the place as it sent it's chills through the glass windows. He didn't like that he had to open the door and let the warm air out and the cold in, but it was either that or get carbon monoxide poisoning, so with an easy choice, Wayne unlocked the door and let it open.

Almost instantly, a cold rush of air blasted in, rushing past Wayne and sending a slight cold breeze onto his body as the thin black smog rushed out just as quickly as the cold was rushing in and blowing dust and other light weight items around.

The Asian waited for the air to thin out and become cleaner before closing the door, locking it, and covering the doors with the tarps once again before walking back to his lookout spot. He found the room was easier to breathe in now that some of the deadly smoke was outside, but the smog was replaced by some of the winter chills.

Wayne hated the weather, in fact, he hated winter all together, and it wasn't just because he was homeless and fighting for his life, he just hated the season. Period. He didn't even like Christmas, and that was saying something about a kid his age. Sixteen years old and he didn't like Christmas, people at school had often wondered what was wrong with him, and he never told them why he hated it, he just told them that he did. That usually lead to the kids making fun of him, and he tried not to take it personally, though it did get on his nerves.

The half Asian walked back to the fire before sitting down and looked at the left over food in the pot, a little less then a fourth of the food remained, but that was because they had eaten until they felt sick, but they all thought that it was well worth it, even if they did have their doubts on if it was really the best idea. They needed the food though, so it was probably all right, there would be enough for breakfast in the morning and maybe enough to last a couple of days, but any longer then that was unknown.

They didn't have any food when they first walked into the store, and everything that they had found was in that pot of chili. He hoped that it wouldn't be their only supply of food for a long time.

Wayne saw that they fire was dying, so he grabbed another pair of shoes and tossed them onto the fire. The dead didn't need them anyway, and nobody else wanted them either because of the rotten state they were in. That's what he thought as the flames started to lick the shoes, like they were wondering wither to devour them or not, before they started to do just that.

Wayne then placed his gloved hands over the fire in order to warm them up. As he did that, he looked at the group members and how they were sleeping soundly, the result of passing out because of drug withdrawal.

Hunter and Cassie were fast asleep, Cassie's head on Hunter's arm while the side of Hunter's head was on top of Cassie's head. Hunter's balaclava still halfway up his face. Harry was sleeping close to them and slept on his side, giving out moderately quiet, yet painful sounding coughs while Nathan slept on the opposite side of the fire.

Wayne looked at them and thought of how their current clothes and equipment made all of them look bulky and, some what, intimidating. Even Cassie and Wayne looked strong, even with Cassie's short five foot three body and Wayne's scrawny frame. Not that it didn't keep attackers away, but his olive green hooded parka, black ski pants, winter gloves, black balaclava with a multi-shaded green and black fox mottercross helmet that was currently off in the corner his was guarding, were keeping him warm and protected. And that wasn't even counting his other equipment.

He had four handguns, two of which were under his parka while the other two were hanging by his waist while a machete was placed on his back like a sword. Extra round of ammunition were in the inner pockets of his ski pants and the pouches of his forest camo tactical hunting vest.

Everyone had a weapon on them at all times, and if they weren't on them, then they were at least within reach, like how Hunter was cradling his AK-47 on his chest while Cassie had her AA-12 automatic shotgun on her back. Nathan holding his Glock 17 handgun by his side while Harry held his UZI with both hands close to his chest. The safeties were on so that they wouldn't end up shooting each other accidently, or themselves.

Wayne knew that they were going to have to use those weapons when the sun came up, and how they were going to be fighting for their lives again as soon as they exited the store, wither it was by crazy people, psychopaths, the infected, or worse. He didn't want to go back out there, he was scared of what was outside, but he knew that he had to go out anyway, if the group was going to find a safe haven, they had to go outside and face the monsters that had been created by who knows what. Because looking for some place safe and slowly starving to death was better then doing nothing and starving to death. Either way, they were slowly starving, but at least they weren't rotting away in a house waiting to die like house dwellers.

But Wayne didn't think about the infected, or the other monsters, or the harsh winter weather outside as he looked at the group of teenagers with him and the food in the iron pot.

He looked at the nearest dead body, still sort of fresh, but filleted like a fish. He no longer had any meat on him, his body in a large pool of blood with his skin, bones, and intestines tossed to the far corner of the store. The top left area of his skull had been shattered by an AK-47 bullet. The body was beginning to smell, but Wayne hardly noticed, he was used to the smell of it inside buildings.

His stomach was full of food, they had a fire going to keep them warm, and he was among friends, and that made him happy. It was all he needed at the moment. All other thoughts were pushed away as he looked into the pot of chili and thought of how he didn't like what they were doing.

Wayne shook his head and gave a gentle laugh as he thought of his previous thought.

He walked back to the place he had set up guard, sat back down, looked at the blackened doors, and thought of how he hated just about everything that was outside.


	2. Chapter 2

Deserted.

If there was any word to describe the state of the town the five friends were in, the first word someone might of come up with was deserted, but Hunter knew that was far from the truth, and so did the other group members. They weren't foolish enough to think that they were alone in the amount of snow that had fallen during the night made the snow on the ground higher then the group's ankles, and that was more then enough to cover the tracks of whoever, or whatever, had been in the area hours before the group had woken up, leaving a blanket of fresh snow covering the town area. No tracks, no sightings, and no sounds of anybody didn't mean that the town was empty of people, it just meant that they weren't close to them. Or were hiding very well and keeping quiet.

The only noise Hunter could hear at the moment was the soft crunching of snow that occurred every time someone in the group put some weight on their leg to walk forward, backwards, or sideways, and he didn't really like it. To him, it sounded like someone popping open a bag of potato chips in a quiet classroom, it was something that put yourself in the spot light of unwanted attention. But even when him or the group tried to be quiet, the noise seemed unnaturally loud without the background noise they were used to in a populated area.

Vehicles that used to drive by on the road by their controllers were either gone or abandoned, and not always on the street. Some of them had crashed into buildings, highway signs, or had been left on the side walk, left to wither away by nature's elements.

Hunter saw such a car in front of him, abandoned in the middle of the sidewalk, completely covered with snow, and headed towards it. His friends followed quickly behind him.

When Hunter got to the car he let his left hand let go of his assault rifle before he started to wipe off the snow from the front passenger window. To his left, Nathan wiped the right back passenger window.

Hunter and Nathan then peeked inside the vehicle, looking for anything that could be of use. Food, liquids, weapons, ammunition, drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, batteries, anything that they could use. All he found inside was a car that was empty save for a couple of children's toys, rental DVDs, and a coupon for a two for one coffee at a local coffee shop, nothing of interest on sight, but there might be something out of sight.

"Open it up Harry." Hunter said to Harry without turning around to face him.

Harry growled a little as he pushed past Hunter, and while Hunter couldn't see past the black welding mask that his friend wore, he knew that he didn't think to highly of the order, but obeyed. The welding mask's blackened eye guard that normally flipped over to protect the eyes from the blinding flames was removed for obvious reasons, leaving behind a clear, see through shield that allowed Harry to be protected, but sightful.

As Harry pick locked the car door with his home made tool, Hunter wondered how they were going to find a vehicle suitable for the winter, and as he looked at the road ahead, he especially wondered how they were going to find a vehicle suitable for this kind of winter.

The weather was cold, colder then anything Hunter had ever felt with the temperature at a freezing minus eleven degrees Fahrenheit, something that Hunter and his friends never experienced in their hometown of Amber Stone, Tennessee.

Hunter didn't like that he had a cheap, light blue George jacket that had been bought at Walmart, because while it kept the snow off his skin, it didn't keep all the water from soaking through the fabric. To combat that, he had a black and white Gap sweatshirt underneath. And while it still didn't stop Hunter's skin from getting wet, it did help better then no jacket and no sweatshirt at all.

Hunter turned back to his friends and saw that they had better quality clothes then he did. Better jackets and better snow pants, he let them take the better clothes, and only slightly regretted not taking the better clothes for himself, because he would like to not have material that seemed to drink up every drop of liquid that landed on him.

Hunter put his friends first for the material. He let Harry take the welding mask, let Wayne take the mottorcross helmet with red tinted protective goggles, and let Nathan and Cassie take the full faced motorcycle helmets. Unfortunately for him, other then the common bicycle helmets and construction hard hats, he could only find one recent thing that protected his face, a red hockey goalie mask that only protected his face.

He didn't regret giving them the equipment, he just wished that he could find some decent protection for himself. A full faced motorcycle helmet was preferred, but what he would of really liked would be an anti riot helmet, or even better, a whole anti riot suit.

Hunter kicked the snow at his feet for second at the same he inhaled sharply through his nose, feeling the ice cold air and snow being sucked into his nostriles. By that time, Harry unlocked the car door.

"Its open, boss." Harry replied as he stepped back from the now open car door, letting it's stink of mold and mildew escape the metal framed prison. Hunter hatted the way Harry had said boss. He knew that he was mocking him.

Hunter turned to face the lock picker before he snapped at him.

"Well search the damn thing."

Harry muttered something under his breath, but Hunter didn't hear him, he was much more concerned about something else. Finding any kind of vehicle was one thing, but finding the right one was something else entirely, then there was finding the fuel to get it to run, because he knew the odds were that the vehicle would be either empty or close to it, and they had a long trip to make if they wanted to get to their destination.

Hunter kept a look out for anything of interest as the nearby vehicle was being searched by Harry, Nathan, and Wayne. Looking out for anything, or anyone that might be of interest and ready to pull out his machete if anything looked like it was hostile. If things looked really bad, he was ready to use his Russian assault rifle to eliminate the threat, if trouble found them, or they found trouble. The falling snow didn't help his sight in the slightest.

If anything, it made it even worse, same with the fog that wasn't so thick that you couldn't see five feet in front of you, but thick enough that it added another eerie element to the town. That and the fact that he didn't really know for sure if anything was really out there or not. For all he knew, the chips of black and white that he saw moving around might not of been just snow, but something else. Was it really just his imagination, or was there something up on that roof? Was it nothing, or was there something moving around in the streets ahead of him? He wasn't sure, but he wasn't going to leave the group just to see if he was right or not, it wasn't important at the moment. It wasn't attacking them or even coming close to them, so for all he knew, it either hadn't seen them or was a figment of his imagination.

He hoped it was the latter.

Still, he couldn't help but worry that something might jump out in front of him and kill him and his friends, so he watched. He watched the moving flakes of black, white, and grey and was ready to kill anything that gave off a silhouette of something threatening.

Come on. The anxious teenager thought as he looked at the moving shapes in front of him. Come here and show yourself.

"Hey, Hunter," The thinking teenager heard Nathan say loud enough for him to hear it, and break out of his thoughts, but not loud enough for the sound to travel much further then that. "Come look at what we found."

Hunter, while out of his paranoid trance, blinked a couple of times, only to see the scenery that he had seemed to fixated on, looked normal. White powder falling from the cloudy sky, snow capped buildings, a road filled with snow, abandoned buildings with boards nailed to their windows, though some buildings had their boards and windows broken, everything looked normal. No suspicious shadows or anything.

Hunter blinked once more, still not completely satisfied that there was nothing to worry about, but turned around and sniffed as he walked to the car. He knew that there was nothing he could do about it, but as long as they weren't coming towards him and his friends, or even looking in their direction the wrong way, then it was no big deal if something was in front of him.

Avoidance. That's all he could hope for, avoid them and hope that they avoided his group.

Hunter walked over to the car and saw that the trunk was open as well as the entire right passenger side with Harry, Wayne, and Nathan occupying said spots.

The first thing Hunter saw was Harry holding up a small bottle of nearly finished Jim Bean bourbon whiskey in triumph. The second thing he saw was Wayne unscrewing a flashlight, no doubt collecting the batteries inside. He felt a small smile appear on his face. Hunter was glad to of found that drink of alcohol and a couple of batteries to power their own flashlights, but he was even more excited about the items beside Nathan. Those items were a couple of red plastic, two gallon gas containers. Hunter couldn't help but smile at the find.

"All right," He said excitedly as he high fived Nathan, smiling broadly, before he grabbed one of the red gas cans.

He could scratch one problem off his list. "How much gas does this car have?" He asked, wondering if it could to them another favor.

"Fucking empty," The lock picker replied bitterly. "It's worse then useless."

"Shit." Hunter replied just as bitter. He had been hoping that it could at least offer some fuel, but either it had been empty when it had crashed, or it had been emptied by someone else before them. He guessed it was the latter. "God damn scavengers, found this car before we did." Hunter then kicked the right rear tire with his army surplus desert boot, much to Nathan's horror. The giant had looked at the car like it could explode at the slightest attack. "We need that fuel."

"Hey," Wayne said as he walked up to his friend. "At least we found the batteries, gas cans and whisky. Those scavengers were stupid to just walk away from a haul like this."

While Hunter felt anger towards those that had stolen the gas, he knew that Wayne was right, they had found the batteries that would power their flashlights, the gas cans that would hold some fuel for their escape vehicle, and the whisky to drink later.

"Yeah," Hunter said, calming down a little. "Yeah we did."

"They may of stolen our gas, but they didn't take the flashlight, and I bet where ever they are, they got lost in the dark somewhere and stumbled into a death trap." Wayne encouragingly told Hunter, making Hunter feel better as he thought of a group of people wandering around in the dark, only to get killed because they couldn't see ten feet in front of them.

"Besides," Harry chimed in. "It's not like this is the only car in this place."

As soon as he heard that, he felt like laughing at himself. Of course the car in front of him wasn't the only car in the town, there were plenty of other vehicles around, lots of chances to siphon gas and get the amount to run something.

Hunter smiled before he loosened his grip on the gas can he was holding, something that he didn't even know he had done until he had loosened his fingers, and asked that anyone but Wayne carry the other gas can. Harry and Nathan did rock paper scissors over it as Hunter walked over to Cassie, who had been standing guard the entire time, staring out into the open streets.

"See anything?" Hunter asked the female of the group, more out of wondering how she was doing rather then if she really saw anything.

"Nothing. I think." Cassie answered with her minimal emotion voice. "There's," Cassie paused, looking for the right thing to say before continuing. "Things out there. I'm thinking about checking it out."

Hunter gently placed his right arm over the much shorter girl's right shoulder and let it hang down the center of her body while still holding his AK-47, keeping her from moving forward, before he spoke again.

"Don't do that Cassie," He told her, thinking about what could be out there. He knew that Cassie was tough and protected by her gear, but she wasn't invincible. "You don't know what's out there."

Hunter then tapped the plastic gas can that was in his left hand on Cassie's left knee. Cassie flinched before looking down at it and calming down, realizing what it was. "And we need you with us, you know."

"Yeah." She said with a slight sigh before looking back to the forsaken town. Hunter gently turned his friend towards the group before he talked to he once again. "Come on Cassie, we've got some searching to do."

* * *

The five friends hadn't found their primary objective, but they did find their secondary objectives, and a little bit more.

In the group's search for finding a vehicle that could handle the tough layer of snow that had fallen the night before, and the days and nights before that, they had found other, less suitable vehicles that offered some gasoline to fill their five gallon jugs.

Siphoning the gas into the hollow cans had sounded like the loudest sound on earth to the worried friends as they looked out for anything that might approach them. Nothing did, but they were still worried, sound attracted things, and right now, they didn't want the attention.

Harry, who had been the one siphoning the gas, had accidently sucked on the black tube too long on the latest vehicle, and as a result, had gasoline flow into his mouth before he swiftly spat it all out into the snow, and continued to spit and swear until Wayne pulled out a bottle of water to allow him to wash his mouth out. Harry was thankful for that.

But while all that had happened, his friends had became incredibly panicky as they all lifted their guns and looked around them, swiftly turning left and right to see if they had attracted unwanted attention to themselves because of the siphoner's blunder.

Luckily, no one, and nothing, had appeared.

Nathan then told them that they should leave the mini-van they had been siphoning from just in case they had been heard, everyone quickly agreed.

"Tick-tack?" Wayne asked as the group walked away from the nearly drained mini-van with near full cans of gas. "Non-fuel flavoured."

"Please." Harry said as he held out his hand, allowing the Wayne to place three orange flavoured tick tack candies into the palm of his gloved hand. Harry then spat on the ground one last time before popping the orange pills into his mouth and lowering his welding mask. "Fucking opaque tube," Harry spat as Wayne started to hand over orange candies to everyone. "If anyone sees a clear one, grab it, can't deal with tasting regular fuel, it's the worst."

Harry, who's talent among the group was stealing cars, would be the one to know about what different types of fuels tasted like. His talent had come in handy through out their history of being friends, but Hunter couldn't think of a time where it was more needed then the era they were in. In fact, at the moment, he felt as if one of his greatest, most realistic, needs was a vehicle with a heater inside. With that, they could be out of the snow and out of the cold as well without having to worry about suffocation. Not only that, but they'd get to their destination faster. A real plus in his mind.

"We should." Nathan agreed, nodding his head. "We don't want a performance like that to happen again."

Harry pulled down his welding mask as he looked away with slight embarrassment and anger as everyone recalled how Harry had created a lot of noise when the acidic liquid went into his mouth, making Wayne try to calm him down so that he wouldn't attract a lot of attention before it was too late. Everyone else panicked.

"Another thing to add to the list of our already growing things we need." Hunter grumbled as he mentally put down transparent hose on his list of things to look for as well as throwing a tick-tack into his mouth. Hunter wondered what the odds were of them finding such an item since people had been having the same idea as them since before the whole incident began.

"Hey man," Harry spoke up with anger in his voice. "Why don't you try and siphon some gas through that tube before you start muttering shit."

Hunter turned around to face the car thief before he began talking to him.

"Why don't you just shut the fuck up."

"How about you fuck off." Harry retorted, causing Hunter to lift his right foot up and shove his combat boot into the lock picker's chest. Harry fell to the ground and got a back full of snow.

The two friends looked like they were going to have a face off when Nathan and Wayne got between them before Harry could get up or Hunter could attack again. Nathan facing Hunter while Wayne was facing Harry, Cassie watched with a blank expression.

"Not here," The both of them said. "Not now."

"We've got more important things to worry about right now." Nathan told the two friends who wanted a face off. His voice sounded a little worried. "Let's just find a good vehicle and get out of this town."

"Yeah," Wayne agreed. "You guys can fight in the car."

Hunter and Harry looked at each other with anger before both of them huffed.

"Later." The both said almost simultaneously before Hunter turned back around as Wayne helped his friend to his feet. Harry quietly muttered things to Wayne as the group started to search for a winter vehicle again. They'd find one first, then do as Wayne suggested, fight inside it.

* * *

Not one minute later, Cassie spotted one, pointing to a lump of snow in the middle of the street. The group of friends excitedly, but cautiously, ran to it.

Harry ran over to the front of the vehicle and started to wipe away the snow from the exterior, sending wisps of powder flying left and right as he threw his hands in those directions.

As Harry wiped away the snow, the others waiting anxiously, wondering if this was going to be the vehicle that would get them out of the town and onto the road. If not, they were going to loot the vehicle for all it was worth before continuing the search for a better one.

Harry stopped wiping and clapped his mitted hands softly, breaking off the snow from his hands as he examined the vehicle in front of him.

"It's a slightly lifted truck." He told him happily. "Probably a Ford one fifty." He then looked at his friends before continuing. "Everyone, help me get the snow off the exterior, the tires need have a clear path as well, so everyone take a tire and form a path for each one before wiping the truck clear of snow."

The five friends, now excited and ecstatic that they had found the thing that would start them off in their long journey, started to frantically brush all the snow off of the grey truck and clear a path for it to drive through.

But just as soon as the five teenagers had gotten some sort of happiness, the cruel world just had to take it away from with with the sound of fire crackers. The sound of fire crackers occurred shortly after Hunter and Cassie started to dig a path from the tires while Nathan and Wayne were clearing the mountain of snow that had formed between the rear and forward tires as Harry cleared the wind shield, or as much as he could.

"You hear that?" Nathan asked, stopping his job as he listened to the environment again, turning his head left and right. "Did you guys hear that?"

"Hear what?" Hunter asked, before he heard another couple of hard, crack cracks.

All five group members looked at each other with various degrees of worry, all of them knowing that what they were hearing wasn't fire crackers. Not only that, but they didn't sound too far away, that's what worried Hunter the most. "About three or four blocks away," Hunter estimated as he looked down the road. "And these aren't big blocks like the ones in big cities."

"So...Move faster?" Wayne asked the question that was on everybody's mind.

"Of course it means move faster," Hunter hissed, but only loudly enough for his friends to hear. He didn't know which direction the gun people were traveling to, but he didn't want them to travel towards him or his friends. "There's people with guns, and who knows who's ahead of, or chasing, them."

The group of friends then seemed to be working at double the speed, sending thick clouds of snow flying away from the grey and scratched, 1994 Ford F150, in an effort to avoid a confrontation. Harry had just finished clearing the wind shield of snow, removed his metal mask, and started to dig the snow out from below the Ford to get to the gear shift tab linkage.

The sound of gunfire crackled in the air, and Hunter noticed that it seemed to be getting steadily closer. That only made him worry more. The gun wielder was getting closer to them, and he didn't want to think of what was trailing behind them. And while that gun owner didn't have a large caliber gun or an automatic weapon from the sounds he was hearing, he still didn't want to meet up with them and those that were attacking them. "How's that hot wiring going?" Hunter asked as him and Cassie continued to dig the path.

"Just swell," Harry sarcastically. "There's a mountain of snow in the way and it's hard to move around it to get to the gear shift linkage."

"How about you move the snow away." Cassie told her friend, trying to be helpful, but that only irritated Harry.

"Yes," The vehicle thief replied harshly. "I think I'll do that. Thanks Cassie, that was very helpful." Cassie seemed proud of herself as she continued digging, not getting that Harry was being extremely sarcastic.

More firecrackers rang out as the five members continued to do their jobs as quickly as they could possibly do it, and the gun shots only seemed to be getting closer, with each passing moment.

"Get that truck ready," Hunter said as he stood up. "Cassie and I have a trail for the front tires." The path wasn't perfect, but Hunter figured that it was good enough, and once the truck started to move, it would get above the thick layer of snow and start to drive smoothly.

"Then start pouring in the gas," Harry told them as he continued to dig under the truck. "If this truck has no fuel in it by the time I've finished hotwiring we're fucked."

Hunter then ran to the gas cans that had been placed down beside the truck before he unscrewed the cap, inserted the nozzle, and started to dump in the liquid that would power their escape vehicle. From the hollow sound that occurred when the fuel entered the tank, Hunter assumed that the truck had been emptied.

"Watch our sides Cassie." Hunter told his female friend as he thought of how nobody was on the look out.

While Hunter was pouring the fuel, Nathan was begging for the snow to be cleared out while Harry was muttering for the same thing. Cassie calmly started to look out into the streets.

Fifteen seconds later, the gas can Hunter had been using had been drained of it's contents. Hunter dropped the gas can before he repeated the entire process again with a different gas container.

The second can had been drained by the time Harry had found the gear shift link and had pulled the tab, putting the car in gear. Though, in their haste to get the truck running, the group, especially Harry, had forgotten that a vehicle in gear, without a person on the brake, meant that the vehicle was going to star moving on it's own. "What the hell?" Harry said in confusion as the truck began to move. Hunter noticed it as he dropped the second empty can.

"Harry!" Hunter shouted, worried for his friend as he ran towards the pair of tan coloured, Irish Settler boots sticking out from under the moving truck.

Harry tried to move out from under the run away vehicle, but Hunter, Nathan, and Wayne, all managed to grab their friend's ankles before they gave a sharp pull towards them, causing a teenager's upper body to appear out in the open as the back of his ski mask threatened to come off his head.

The truck had been moving very slowly, but the friends had all acted like it was traveling the speed of a fighter jet.

Now that their friend was safe from being crushed, the group now had one thing on their minds, stopping the run away truck.

The three friend's let go the Harry's ankles before they started to chase the truck while Harry grabbed his nearby welding mask.

"Stop that truck!" Hunter, Nathan, and Wayne all shouted at Cassie, who was looking back and forth between the truck and her friends in confusion. It wasn't until they told her to stop the truck a second time that she knew what she had to do and took action.

The truck wasn't moving very fast, but it was gaining speed, and the teenagers were acting like it was a big deal, and to them, it was. Hunter didn't want the Ford to get away, it was important for the plan, and by God was the plan important for everyone. There was no way that it was getting away from them.

The three boys and one girl all reached the truck at the same time, Cassie slammed her hands onto the front of the truck, Wayne grabbing onto a door handle with Hunter and Nathan grabbing Wayne's chest and arm to help slow him, and the truck down.

"God damn it!" Harry shouted, pissed off that he had forgotten that the putting it in gear would make it move. "Should of remembered that would happen!"

"It doesn't matter now," Hunter told him using his natural volume, now that they had shouted, giving away their location. "All that matters now is that we get into the truck and get out of here before that gunman shows up. Unlock the truck." It was at that moment that the gunshots seemed to be even closer then before, making them all look in the direction they were coming from. They didn't see anything or anyone, so they all turned back to their task at hand, more desperate then ever.

"Right." Harry said as he pulled out a long, thick wire that was curved at the edge before he stuck the homemade slim jim down the glass panel and tried to unlock the truck.

Within seconds, with the effort of four people, the truck stopped in it's tracks, making the lock picker have an easier time unlocking the truck, but unfortunately, luck didn't seem to be on his side. Meanwhile, the five friends looked in the directions of the gunshots every time one went off, worried that they were getting close, and it wasn't completely foolish to think that, Hunter estimated that the gun weilder was maybe a block and a half away from them.

"We're running out of time Harry, hurry up." Hunter told the lock picker with increasing anxiety.

"I'm moving as fast as I can," Harry told Hunter with frustration as he fumbled with the wire. "Maybe if-" Part of the window shattered and left a hole where Cassie had punched her right fist through the window. Her friends looked at her arm in surprise as she moved her hand to the door lock and pulled the lever up with a clunk.

"It's open." She said plainly, before she pulled her arm out from the window and massaged her fist a little before before Hunter, Harry, Nathan, and Wayne recovered from their brief moment of surprise.

"Right...Yeah..." Harry said, still recovering a little bit from what he had seen. "It's open."

Hunter knew his friend, but he still didn't expect her to do something like that. He found it a bit amazing that she did it in one blow as well, knowing how hard windows were.

Harry then pulled the wire out from between the solid piece of glass and placed it into his indigo snow pants pocket before he opened the door and pulled out his machete to do his second order of businesses. "Nathan," Harry said as he ripped off the plastic steering column before a tangle of wires spilled out. "I need you to use your crowbar and break the steering lock, can you do that for me?"

The African-American giant nodded before he pulled out his crowbar and stuck it between the steering wheel and gave it a sharp tug, giving off a sharp crack to assure them that the steering lock had been broken, those, allowing them to steer the truck after getting it started.

As Harry looked for the correct wires to cut off and attach to each other, the others couldn't help but wonder if they were going to make it in time.

Hunter didn't want to abandon this truck just after they had gone through so much trouble to find it and get it started. He thought up a storm of swears at the gunman who was ruining their chances of getting out of this town and down the road, hoping that whatever was chasing them caught them so that they'd be left alone, but his hoped were shattered as he heard two more cracks, followed by a scream. A female's. Another sound followed straight after, the sound of a truck's engine trying to turn over, making four of the five friend's jump in fright before they realized what it was. Still, it was loud enough to attract unwanted attention if the town had been busy with people. The engine seemed so much louder in a near dead town.

Hunter kept on muttering the same words as again and again as the engine failed to start and he collected the gas containers before he opened the canopy window and threw them in the back of the truck. He then slammed the canopy shut and waited some more for a chance to escape.

"Come on come on comeon comeoncomeon." Hunter muttered anxiously with each passing second, hearing the gunshots and screams get closer and closer. Closer then he would of liked them to be.

After what seemed like forever, the truck finally started up with the volume that, in Hunter's mind, rivaled an artillery bomb. It seemed that loud to him as the engine started to run nosily. He didn't like the noise of the grumbling engine, but it was an older vehicle that was around fourteen years old. Also, he knew that vehicles made noise and that they really needed one, so he sucked it up and turned around and started to run for the passenger side door.

"Truck's running!" Harry shouted as he unlocked the passenger side door, allowing Hunter to open it up, bend the seat over, and allow Wayne to get into the back row. "Get in, get in!" Harry did the same for Cassie and Nathan.

As soon as their friends were in the back seats and searching for their seatbelts, Cassie the exception of looking for her seatbelt, Harry and Hunter placed their seats back in their original positions. But before they could climb back in, a voice shouted out from behind them.

"Wait!" A male voice called out.

"Help us!" A female voice quickly followed.

Hunter and Harry looked behind them, and saw that there were two figures, both covered with fresh blood on their winter clothing. The male was carrying a handgun, both were running towards the Ford. Behind them was a large group of sick looking people chasing after them.

The twenty or more people behind them with pale or grey skin, blood stained clothes, most of which wasn't even close to being suited for winter, not that they seemed to care, all they seemed to be interested in was the two covered up people in front of them. Some of them had red claw marks on their skin, some had boils or small tumours. It wasn't until just now that Hunter heard the low, growly like sounds coming from the sick people's mouths.

Damn, Hunter thought as he looked at the group of people coming towards him. Infected.

As victims of the so called Green Flu, those mindless animals acted just like zombies, but worse. They could run, they could climb, they wanted to kill and eat people, and there were worse things about them as well, but Hunter didn't want to think about the worst of them as he looked at the horde of infected and hoped that there wasn't any of the worse kinds in that group.

The only good thing he could think about the infected were that they were easier to kill then the stereotypical zombies, you didn't need a head shot to kill them, but Hunter didn't want to get tangled up in them, even if they were easier to kill, they were still dangerous, especially in a large group.

"Help us!" The girl pleaded once again, holding her arm out towards him, like he was their savior. Hunter just sniffed the cold air before he looked into the truck, and saw that all the seats were taken up. He couldn't fit them inside, even if he wanted to.

"What's going on out there?" Wayne asked as he tried to look over into the rear view mirror.

"Infected." Hunter replied, still looking at the male and female running away from the infected beings. All three of his back seat friends looked worried at the mention of that single word. "And two survivors."

Suddenly, they seemed more interested.

"Aren't you going to do anything?" Wayne asked, trying to get a look at the rear view mirrors to see the two survivors.

Hunter thought for a moment before he came to a decision.

"Yes I am." Hunter answered before he turned to Harry. "Drive slowly so that they can catch up," Hunter told the driver. "And when I give the signal, floor it."

"Sound easy enough." Harry said as he climbed into the driver's seat. "You sure there isn't anything else you want me to do?"

"No." Hunter replied as he closed the passenger door and ran to the back of the truck and opened the canopy before hopping over the tail gate. As soon as Hunter had climbed into the back of the truck, Harry started to move the vehicle slowly up the road, slow enough that the two uninfected survivors could catch up, but fast enough to get a quick getaway when they were saved. "Get in!" Hunter shouted to the survivors as they got steadily closer. "Come on!"

The huffing of the survivors became clearer, telling Hunter that they had been running hard for a while. The growls of the infected got louder and clearer as well.

The male was the first one to get to the truck and Hunter extended his hand to grab onto his reached out hand. But the male survivor just reached over away from Hunter, to grab the much younger female, grab her arm, and got her to reach for Hunter's hand.

Hunter then managed to grab her hand and pull her hard enough that her feet lifted off the air before she managed to place her boots on the rear bumper.

The male reached the end of the truck as his female companion climbed over the tail gate and into the truck. He reached out to Hunter, who took it before pulling him towards the truck, letting his feet step onto the rear bumper.

Hunter then let go of him before he banged his gloved palm twice on the exterior of the Ford. The truck then gave out a monstrous roar before it accelerated out of the reach of infected hands while spraying bits of snow all over the pursing infected.

The man nearly feel out of the truck, but he managed to hold onto the tailgate and managed to pull himself in.

The infected continued to chase the vehicle, but it was no use, they couldn't catch a vehicle that was traveling faster then them.

The infected got farther and farther away from them, becoming smaller and smaller, and Hunter felt satisfied that they were no longer a threat before he closed the canopy and faced the two survivors, who looked tired and relived, before he pulled out his own handgun, a Colt1911A1, and pointed it at the the two new comers. The male saw it first and threw his hands up in fright, his expression changing from relived to frightful in an instant.

"Whoa whoa whoa buddy," He said with fear in his voice, especially when Hunter pulled back the safety, giving off dreadful, quick series of sharp clicks. His female ally then saw the gun and let out a gasp in fright as well. Hunter quickly pointed the handgun at her as well. "Take it easy." Hunter pointed his gun back at the male.

"Give me your weapon," Hunter told him as calmly and threateningly as possible. "Or I blow a hole in your chest and throw her," Hunter said with a slight wave of his weapon towards the girl. "To the infected outside." And he meant it.

"O- Okay." The man said as he tossed his gun, a Glock 17, to Hunter. The gun landed next to Hunter, and without looking away from the two, he picked up the handgun with his free hand, clicked the safety on, and placed it in his jacket pocket.

"Now all your weapons," Hunter demanded, knowing that they'd have more then one weapon among the two of them. "Knives, bats, clubs, whatever you've got, throw them here. Empty guns included."

They gave in quickly to Hunter's demands, giving him their machete, lead pipe, and an empty Beretta 89.

Hunter, not satisfied that they had given him every weapon they owned, roughly searched the duo as they protested that they had given him everything he wanted. Hunter searched the older male first, grabbing him by the front of his dark blue American Egale feild jacket and threw him against the wall before doing a very well done search, in which he patted him down everywhere, including his crotch, before searching his pockets. He did the same with the younger girl, not letting anything stop him.

He only found spare, loose bullets for the Glock, which he pulled out and stuffed into his own pocket. Hunter then searched their backpacks, finding that they didn't have any kind of weapons inside before throwing it back into their hands.

Satisfied with the search, Hunter lowered the gun, but kept the safety off. "Sorry about that," He said with a mild, reassuring and more friendly voice. "Just making sure that you're not going to be attacking me in here. After all, there's two of you and only one of me, minus my friends in the front, and they won't be able to save me in time if you do decide to attack me. And really, I don't know you two, so," Hunter shrugged. "Better safe then sorry."

The two looked relived that they weren't going to get killed, but the shock of getting into the back of the truck with a stranger that pulled a gun on them before threatening them hadn't worn off just yet. They just nodded and agreed, glad that he hadn't blown their brains out.

Hunter sniffed loudly before he continued. "Anyway, we got off on the wrong foot, and for that I apologize. My name's Robert, what's yours?"

"David." The male responded, still scared, but not as much now that he saw that Hunter's scare was all in good nature. Good, but scary.

"Becky." The girl replied with the same fear as David.

"David." Hunter said as he looked at the male. "Becky." He said, turning to the female. "Welcome to our new home."


	3. Chapter 3

Strangers.

It was something that the group was always vigilant about, and for good reason to, as most people weren't like they were back in the pre-infection days, but even in the past, there were people that they would of wanted to stay away from.

The days of law abiding citizens were gone, replaced with scavengers and survivors of all kinds, and for the most part, Hunter and his friends tended to avoid for the obvious reasons someone would want to avoid someone holding a gun, they didn't want to get into a fight and get killed or injured.

That's also the reason Hunter had gotten David and Becky to give up their weapons, he didn't want to get killed or injured if they suddenly decided to attack. But even though he had all their weapons, he knew that there was still a chance that he'd get killed or injured if they decided to fight back, but at least he had a better chance of winning the encounter, especially with the point forty-five handgun in his hand.

Even though the weapon wasn't pointed towards them, the mere presents of the firearm was enough for the man and girl to feel worried, and for Hunter to feel comfort.

David and Becky, as Hunter had found out soon after they had started to chat to calm some nerves down, were father and daughter. Their ages were unknown, but Hunter guessed from their voices and their looks, since they weren't wearing any kinds of ski masks or anything that could cover their faces other then the hoods on their jackets. David looked like he was was somewhere in his early fifties while his daughter was either thirteen or fourteen.

Hunter did notice soon after that they did have similar features, such as how they had the same light skin and wavy raven black hair, but they had different coloured eyes of which David's was blue while Becky's was brown. Their facial features were the same thing, some the same, like their rounded heads with large cheek bones, some were different, like how Becky had a pointed chin while David had a flat chin. But Hunter decided that they resembled each other enough that they were related to each other and were telling the truth.

It also made him almost regret not telling them his real name. Almost.

"So you traveled all the way here from Sterling, Colorado," Hunter said with interest. "How'd you manage to get all the way down here?"

"Well," David said as he shrugged while his eyes moved to the top right corners of his head, thinking about his past. "When the infection surfaced, and when people I knew started to turn into those monsters," The fifty year old father looked to his right, out the canopy to see if there were any of those monsters outside, there wasn't. All there was was clear roads with only the Ford's tire tracks behind them. "And tried to kill my family and friends." David continued before he looked down with sadness, a sadness that Hunter and friends had also experienced.

A pause occurred, and Hunter didn't interrupt it as David looked like he was seeing some of the past in front of him in the form of memories. His daughter placed her hand gently on his right shoulder for comfort.

David sighed before he continued. "I made it out of town with my family and a few friends before we made out way out of the town and headed to a military quarantine-"

"A failed one I'm guessing," Hunter interrupted, thinking about the other quarantines that him and his friends had gone to, only to see that it had been over run. "Guessing that you two are here and not in that quarantine."

"No," David replied, surprising Hunter. "We made it to the quarantine area in Colorado Springs, with the military all set up and taking in people, and refusing those who they thought were infected."

"And did you get in?" Hunter asked, wondering of their fate. "Were you refused entry?"

"We were let in," David told him. Then let out a saddened look as he continued his story. "But then the people that were infected broke through the quarantine with their overwhelming numbers. And not only that, but some of them had really changed into real monsters."

Hunter nodded, understanding where he was coming from.

"What kind of monsters?" Hunter asked. "Stalkers? Criers? Behemoths?"

David and Becky looked at Hunter for a few second in confusion, wondering what he was talking about before some of it clicked in the teenage girl's mind.

"Criers are the ones with those long nails that cry, while the behemoths are the ones with huge arms aren't they." She asked before Hunter nodded to her. "But what are stalkers? I don't think we've encountered one before."

Hunter then began to explained what one of the special infected were. One of them was a stalker, an infected being that wasn't as mindless as the majority of the infected population. It crawled on all fours and made it's announcement that it was in the area by giving out a distinguishing yell, or by simply pouncing on you before trying to tear you to shreds with it's claws. The thing that was most scary about it was that it was silent, and you sometimes didn't know that it was there until it was too late, almost like a stalker hiding in the shadows.

As soon as Hunter finished explaining what it was, David began talking again.

"We've encountered those things before as well," He told Hunter. "But we don't call them stalkers, we called them jumpers. But, I guess everyone calls them different things."

"So what's your story Robert?" Becky asked suddenly, startling her father for a split second. Hunter was taken off guard for a second as well and almost didn't process the fake name, but managed to recover and answer.

"My story?" Hunter said with a little bit of surprise from switching topics so fast. "Well..." Hunter paused before he scratched the back of his head with his free hand. "Me and my friends in the truck, we all come from a place called Amber stone, Tennessee."

"Is it just you and your friends?" Becky asked curiously. Hunter nodded.

"Yep. Just us."

"How many of you?" Becky asked.

"Five." Hunter told her. "Plus you two."

"Why are you out here? Did you find some place safe?"

"We're looking for a safe place," Hunter told her, surprised that she was the one most comfortable talking with him and asking questions. While David sounded more reserved and seemed to wonder if he should be telling the boy his story, Becky was rapidly spitting out questions for Hunter to answer. "If you of any safe places we'd like to know, because I'm guessing we're like you, we don't want to be out here, especially since it's winter and it's freezing cold out there."

"Sorry," The father told him sadly. "We're just as lost as you are. If we knew where a safe place was, we'd tell you since you have transportation."

Hunter sighed regretfully, and before he even had time to think, the daughter asked another question.

"What happened to your parents?"

"Dead." Hunter sighed quickly, showing that it was a subject that he didn't want to talk about. The way his eyes looked away and the way he had said it showed that he didn't even want to think about it, but either the young teenager didn't catch it, or she just didn't care about Hunter's feelings.

"What happened to them?" She asked, wondering what had happened to the parents of the guy that had saved her.

"Killed." Hunter growled, glaring at her. Though it didn't do any good since he was wearing a balclava and hockey mask and Becky couldn't really see his eyes, or facial expressions that well. Fortunately, her father heard the tone of his voice and advised his daughter to not press the matter any further.

"What about your friend's parents?" She asked, oblivious that it was the same kind of topic that her host didn't want to talk about. Hunter growled again before he loudly announced with annoyance in his voice.

"What happened to your mom? She's not here, so I'm guessing that she's dead, but more likely, just couldn't stand the stupid look on your face and bullshit questions and left before she got gang raped by infected beings."

David and Becky then stopped talking, silence occurred between the three of them as they stoor at each other. David with regret, Becky with shock, Hunter with anger.

David continued to look at Hunter's hand that was holding the deadly weapon. It was trembling more then it normally did, twitching harshly like it wanted to pull the trigger. David all looked fearful that 'Robert', might decide to shoot them because of his temper.

A couple of laughs came from the front of the car, probably Wayne telling a joke or something funny, Hunter wished that he was up there instead of with these two strangers. But, he couldn't help it, he was here now and was the one that had saved them, so that meant that he had to babysit them in the back of the truck, which was cold and bumpy.

Hunter slammed the butt of his handgun against the front of the canopy, probably getting the attention of his friends in the vehicle. "All of you! Shut the fuck up!"

Hunter heard Harry shout something back to him, but he couldn't understand it, so all he did was scream profanity at his friend as the father and daughter looked at him with worry.

When the masked teen finally stopped cursing and shouting dirty things, he slammed the gun on the canopy again in anger, breathing in and out deeply.

Hunter then sighed angrily to both himself and his guests. "Sorry about that," He told them, still not completely calm about the previous subject. "It's something that I don't like to talk about much." With strangers at least.

"Understandable." David told him as he gave his daughter the look, something that she was confused about, understanding where he was coming from, but still worried about his short fused temper. "I don't like thinking about my wife's death, or any deaths that were close to me."

More silence occurred between the host and the guests in the back of the truck. Hunter because he didn't want to talk at the moment, Becky because her father kept her from saying anything, and David because he was afraid that something might trigger Hunter's temper again.

Then without warning, the truck's engine roared louder before the truck quickly accelerated, nearly making Hunter and the others lose their footing.

"G.T.A mother fucker!" Hunter heard Wayne shout before a loud thunk suddenly occurred at the front of the truck an instant before the left rear of the Ford rocked suddenly, sending the three back riders off their butts and into the air for a second before landing back on the truck. Laughs occurred from the front of the truck. "Yeah! Ten points!" Laughs quickly followed, and so did conversation. All of them seemed to of gotten over Hunter's previous screams at them.

Hunter figured that they must of hit one of the infected traveling on the road.

Hunter looked out the canopy window, and saw that there was an infected being laying in the middle of the road with crimson blood staining the white snow.

"Ten points baby." Hunter muttered before he turned his head back to the father and daughter pair.

More silence between them happened as Hunter's friends continued to talk to each other.

"How are you and your friends fairing?" David asked, breaking the silence. "Well on food? Get much sleep?"

"We're doing pretty well," Hunter told him, thinking about their last meal and the family store they had slept in the night before. "We managed to scrounge up some food, but not much and slept in a tiny store that offered almost no food."

"Yes, the disappointment of all that." David said as he looked at his backpack, which was empty except for a couple of cans of vegetables, three bottles of arrowhead water, and some gauze, bandages, and disinfectant.

"You can say that again." Hunter told him, thinking of all the times that him and his friends looked someplace and found a big fat nothing. It was disappointing to say the least.

"So why Louisiana?" Becky asked. "You came from Tennessee, so how'd you get all the way to this state?" Hunter laughed when he heard that.

"I should be asking you two that question since you came all the way from Colorado. But if it really interests you," Hunter said with increasing seriousness. "My friends and I left our hometown in search for a safe haven. When one fell or became unsafe, we'd move away and try to find a new one. Repeat, repeat, repeat. What about you guys? Colorado's a long way from here."

"About the same." Becky told us. "We started out with more, but the numbers slowly got lower the more we moved around." Hunter understood that perfectly. The more they were outside a safe haven, the better the chances were of death with the infected and other people roaming around.

"Same here," Hunter said to them. "Lost some people of my own because of this damn infection." Hunter then looked out the canopy to see an open country side of white fields that seemed to stretch for miles before having a thought. "Anyways, I need to go to the bathroom, you guys should come and meet the rest of the gang while we stop." Hunter told them encouragingly.

"Sounds great." Becky said excitedly. "I can't wait to meet your friends." Hunter smiled before he pounded his gun on the front of the canopy.

"What is it?" He heard Nathan shout through the noise and metal.

"Need to take care of business." Hunter explained to him.

Seconds later, the truck started to slow down and pulled over to the side of the road.

When the truck had stopped and Harry had pulled the ignition wires away from each other, killing the engine. Hunter opened the canopy and let the father and daughter pair get out first before he stepped out behind them. At the same time as they were stepping out, Harry had opened the door, stepped out, and was leaning the driver's seat forward so that the other three could get out of the vehicle.

Hunter walked away from the father and daughter as they walked towards the group of friends that were getting out on the side of the road. It was the country side, and the winter time as well, so even if the infected hadn't been present, the seven survivors wouldn't of needed to worry very much about traffic. But since it was the apocalypse, Harry had just stopped the vehicle where ever he felt like, he just pulled to the side of the road out of habit from his joy riding days.

"Hi," Becky said excitedly as she saw the fellow survivors climbing out of the truck one at a time. "You must be Robert's friends, it's very nice to meet-"

Suddenly, a thump occurred beside Becky before her father gave out a sudden gasp mixed in with a groan. Becky looked to her dad and saw that he had fallen to his knees. Becky looked to her father's back, and saw what Hunter's friends, save Wayne who still needed to get out of the truck, had seen. Hunter was directly behind her father, the Colt1911A1 held firmly in the hand he had used to pistol whip her father.

Becky screamed out as Hunter hit the butt of the heavy handgun on the back of her father's skull a second time. This time, her father fell face first onto nature's cold white blanket before Hunter pointed the gun at her face.

"Get on your knees!" Hunter commanded with a harsh, threatening voice that was even more hostile then when he had interrogated them in the back of the truck. Becky was too startled and shocked to respond, so Hunter demanded again. "Get on your god damn knees!"

Becky didn't comply, so Hunter pistol whipped her across the face, sending her crashing to the ground with a groan.

"What are you doing?" Becky managed to choke out in shock and fear, obviously confused to why her host had suddenly changed from who he was in the truck to who he was now. A thin stream of blood mixed with saliva fell from her mouth. "What are you doing to us?"

"Highway robbery." Hunter answered before he gave a sharp kick to the teenage girl's face, snapping her head back from the contact of a steel toed boot. Her nose broke with an audible wet snap before she started to scream out in pain. "We're taking everything you've got,"

"Whoa whoa whoa," Wayne cried out, having seen the action his friends had done to the people he had wanted to save back in the town. "We can't rob these people."

"Why not?" Hunter asked, curious to what his friend was going to say. Wayne looked uncomfortable with his voice trembling a little.

"W-Well," Wayne told him. "They'll. Th-They'll die."

"And we'll die without their supplies as well, you think that we can survive with the supplies we have right now?"

"But. But we're. We're going to that place." Wayne reminded his friend as he looked at Harry, or more like, his backpack which contained a map that they had found a couple days ago that had the location of interest to the group. The location of the place that they were heading to at the very moment.

"Wayne," Hunter sighed before he noticed that David was recovering and trying to push himself up. Hunter then stomped on his back before the father collapsed back into the snow. "In case you've forgotten, it's still at least a three day travel away, and what happens if it's like the last few places that we've encountered?" Wayne didn't speak, so Hunter continued. "And besides, we don't need them slowing us down and getting in our way."

"Wait." David groaned painfully, almost inaudible. The five teenagers looked at him with interest, his daughter looked at him with concern. "The more of us there are, the stronger we are. More protection, more people to watch your back, more people to-"

"Feed," Hunter interrupted coarsely. "Clothe, look after." Hunter listed as he pressed his heel into the older man's upper spine before he started to grind on it, causing David to wince painfully. "And frankly, we hardly got enough food for ourselves, let alone you and your daughter along with us. And there's other things to look at, such as ammunition and having to look for supplies for you two if something happens to your things."

"He's got a point." Harry mentioned as he looked between his friend and the two other survivors.

"They've both got points," Wayne mentioned, turning his head towards the driver. "But Hunter doesn't need to kill them."

"Hunter?" Becky said with surprise, unheard by everyone except Hunter and her father. "I thought his name was Robert."

"I lied." Hunter bluntly explained, glaring at Wayne as Harry, Wayne, and Nathan started to get into a debate with each other. Wayne saying that they should either let them go with their supplies or taking them with them on their journey while Harry was saying that they should take their supplies as Nathan teeter tottered onto both sides.

Hunter wished that they could just make up their minds and let him take their much needed supplies.

"We need those supplies." Harry pointed out.

"We also need people." Wayne countered.

"We're struggling with food and vitamins on our own." Harry rounded.

"But we're not that far from the safe area." Wayne reminded him. "And we've gone days without food before."

"But what if that safe area was overrun or abandoned?" Nathan pointed out. "It could of all been for nothing."

"At least we'll have more people on our side," Wayne told him.

"With less supplies." Harry said. "These people will eat into our food and drink our liquids and use our medicine if we let them, leaving less for us."

"We could find more," Wayne pointed to him. "There's bound to be houses or stores on the way."

"Only if they aren't populated with psychos or infected or haven't been looted already." Nathan told them. "And truth be told, would you want to risk going into a high kill rate area?"

"We can be a great help!" David shouted desperately, wanting to get out of the situation in the best way possible. Hunter pressed his boot deeper into his back. "We can find you supplies, we don't eat much, we can help you get to the safe area by helping you fight off the monsters." The three arguing teenagers seemed to take that into consideration.

"Shut up you!" Hunter shouted at the father before he lifted his boot off the man's back, only for him to press it on the back of his head forcing his face into the cold snow. At the same time, Becky looked over at the one member of the debate team that hadn't said anything at all and had stood by, watching.

"You there!" She shouted, looking at Cassie with pleading in her eyes. "The one with the blue jacket with the black eagle on it!" At that moment, all eyes turned to Cassie. "You haven't said anything, in the argument, what do you think of all this?"

Becky and David had hope in their eyes as Cassie looked back and forth between the two survivors at their mercy and her friends.

"Can we eat them?" Cassie asked, looking at the father and daughter. The expressions on David and Becky's faces were of total shock, and the fact that Cassie had said it so casually only made it worse.

"Hmmm." Hunter said with the thought of them being a food source. "That's a thought." The father and daughter looked to the three other group members for support, knowing that they had no chance with either Hunter or Cassie.

"Can't." Harry said, breaking Hunter and Cassie's thoughts of turning the two survivors into a meal. "Unlike the last guy we cooked," Making the father and daughter duo even more shocked, they had just learned that Hunter and friends not only thought of eating people, they had done it. "We're nowhere near a place to effectively cook them. Plus, we don't know where the next house is, if there's any around here that isn't occupied. If we kill them, all we'll be getting is rotting meat. And we can't tie them up in the back, we don't have anything that we can tie them up with."

Hunter admitted that they were all good points. Unlike the former family store, they didn't have a pot to cook or a place to build a fire. And he doubted that they'd find a store or oven that worked, in the outdoors no less.

"I'll watch over them." Hunter said, thinking of how he had held them hostage while they were driving down the country side. He had done it once, he could do it some more.

"Not now that they know you want to kill them." Nathan told him. "They might choose to fight for their lives, steal your gun, and kill you before turning on the rest of us."

"I'll knock them out then." Hunter told him.

"And what makes you think you'll know when they wake up?" Nathan asked. "For all we know, they could get knocked out, fake it, then attack when the opportunity arises."

Hunter knew that was a good possibility as well, and only saw one option left. Leave them behind, but he wasn't going to leave empty handed, he had saved them for a reason, and he was going to go through with it. Killing them was optional.

"Well if we can't take them, we have to leave them behind," Hope spread through David and Becky's faces. "And we take what supplies we need." Hunter continued, causing their faces to drop. "Cassie, help me with the supplies."

Cassie walked over with no complaints.

"What are we taking?" Wayne asked, worried for the father and daughter.

"What we need." Hunter answered before he ripped David's backpack off his shoulders and looked to his female friend. "Take their supplies and clothes."

"What?" David and Becky shouted at the same time Wayne shouted it before adding

"I thought you said we were only going to take what we needed."

Hunter then started to force David's jacket off his back as Cassie did the same with Becky.

"We are." Hunter told him as he fought against the father's resistance. "And we need everything."

As Hunter pulled the jacket off David, the father did something unexpected, but at the same time, was fully expected. He punched Hunter right in the testicles. The sudden hit caused Hunter to lose his balance and fall to the ground as he grabbed his groin in excruciating pain.

"Run Becky!" The fifty something year old shouted at his daughter before he gave Hunter a powerful kick to the ribs, causing the wind to leave Hunter's body, before he faced Cassie and took the two necessary steps to grab her jacket and pull her towards him before he reeled back his fist to hit Cassie's face.

But unlike Hunter, Cassie was fully expecting a fight, and dodged the fist before she counter attacked by punching the aggressive father in the left kidney, stunning him because of the area Cassie had hit, and that fact that Cassie was stronger then he had thought she'd be.

As Hunter recovered from the surprise attack and Cassie fought the grown man, Nathan and Harry, out of concern for their friends, jumped onto David. Harry grabbed David's right arm while Nathan wrapped his right arm around the adult's neck, grabbing him in a choke hold.

"Bastard!" Hunter shouted as he scrambled to his feet while Cassie continued to fight the man more then twice her age and nearly five inches taller then her.

David tried to fight back, but if there was one thing that Cassie was good at, it was fighting, even if it had no technique and was more like street brawling then anything else, but that hardly made a difference to the two combatives as the taller and older one continued to be worn down. That, plus the fact that David was being held back and weighed down by two other teenagers, both of whom were taller then him, the tallest one wider then him as well.

The fight had only lasted about four seconds before Hunter grabbed the loving father by the neck part of the jacket, pulled him away from Cassie, and blew his brains out with a point forty five bullet as blood and brains sprayed out of the exit in his head before some of it landed on his daughter's face and shirt.

Becky hadn't ran away, she didn't want to leave her father behind, but was too afraid to face her attackers, so all she did was watch as her dad had fought for her escape, and ended up getting killed for it.

"Daddy!" Becky cried as she ran to her late father, only to be shoved to the ground by Cassie before the enemy girl kicked her across the face, sending a splash of blood out of her mouth before Cassie cruelly slammed her black, shin high, Sorel Caribou boot onto Becky's neck as Hunter holstered his heavy handgun.

Harry and Nathan let go of the dead body and let it fall to the ground with a thud as Becky struggled for breath. "Pla. Sses." The young girl choked as she grabbed Cassie's foot and tried to force it off her throat with little successes. Seeing her resist only made Cassie press down harder, causing the raven haired girl to gag some more.

Becky's eyes turned towards her deceased father, seeing blood pour from the holes in his head while bits of pink-brown brain matter were scattered close to her body. Seeing all that only made her more hysterical and frightened as she thought of how she was going to end up just like him. She tried even harder to push her attacker's foot off her throat, but to no avail.

With wide, frightened eyes, she looked to the other kids around her. She avoided Hunter and Cassie, knowing that they wouldn't care about her death, and looked at the three other teenagers.

She looked at the tallest one that looked like he could beat up the rest of his group single handedly, hoping that he'd put a stop to her pain, but all the African-American did was avoid her gaze.

Becky lost some hope, but looked at the other boy beside him, hoping that he'd step in and save her. All she got was silence.

With her diminishing amount of oxygen heading towards her lungs and brain, Becky looked towards her last, and only hope, the one person that seemed to care about them. He was the smallest one out of the entire group, and now she hoped that he'd be able to say something, anything, that would allow her to get out of the situation that she was in presently.

She desperately wanted him to put a stop to her suffering, but the only thing that small group member did was stay silent and look away from her, like he didn't want to be seen at all.

With all that, all of the young girl's hope disappeared from her eyes and she knew that she was going to die, but her survival intents told her to keep on fighting, so that's what she did. She pushed up on the boot on her throat, she kicked her feet to try and free herself, she screamed, hoping that someone would have her or at the very least it would give her more strength then she presently had.

Hunter watched her struggling, and knew that it was hopeless for the girl to escape with the way that she was struggling. That, and the simple reason that his friend was much too strong for the younger girl to stand up too.

The five older teenagers watched in silence as the younger girl's throat was being pressed on, her entire face turning dark red from lack of air. Two of them were emotionless, two of them looked like they didn't really know which emotion to have, one of them had the look of regret on him.

The raven haired girl looked around one last time, looking for someone to help her. She looked at Hunter, who just stoor down at her with cold eyes. She looked to Cassie, who with her near emotionless face, pressed down harder on her throat. She looked to Harry and Nathan, who only looked away.

But then Becky started to hear something strange coming from one of the older kids, she started to hear laughing. And the reason it sounded so strange was because it didn't start out soft and increase to being loud, it had suddenly occurred and was loud. Harry was laughing like he had seen the funniest thing in the world, and that kind of scared her. Hunter, Cassie, Nathan, and Wayne all looked at Harry as well.

She then looked at Wayne, who meet her eyes for a split second before he quickly looked away in shame.

Becky looked like she was going to cry and lose all hope of ever surviving as her eyes started to go dead with defeat, but then the teenagers heard the sound of soft crunching snow over Harry's laughter.

The young teenager looked over to see Wayne slowly walking towards her, and though he still wasn't looking at her, he was walking towards her. Her dying eyes lit up with hope.

Hunter looked at his friend, and wondered what he was going to do. He knew that he wasn't going to fight Cassie, the result would of been obvious, and it wasn't in his nature. That, and he could tell that he didn't want to because of his lack of eye contact and the way he moved with hardly any confidence in his step.

The half Asian walked forward like he was the shy new kid at school having to present himself in front of his peers, looking away from everyone and stepping forward like he'd rather not.

Hunter watched his friend walk forward until he reached the raven haired daughter, and stopped. Hunter lifted up his handgun, ready to attack if something happened.

Wayne, still not looking like anyone with a shred of confidence, breathed in deeply, before he lifted up his right foot and started to slam it on top of Becky's head.

The sound of grunts, wet snaps and cracks got Harry and Nathan to look at Wayne with surprise as he continued to crush the girl's head into a wet ball of blood and bone as red splattered around the caving in skull.

Wayne was putting a lot of effort into crushing the girl's skull, the way he lifted his foot up and the amount of force he drove into his attacks showed as much, but it was the grunts that he was giving out that solidified any doubts that anyone might of had that he was holding back.

Becky was surprised at first, but then her emotions started to die more and more as Wayne broke her nose, flattened her face, destroyed her teeth, and caused her skull to concave. With each stomp that he gave out, he slammed his black, white, and red, Salomon Aspen boot on the skull harder and harder, splattering more and more blood on his foot ware and the snow around him. All the while, all his friends did was stare at him. Harry stoor and laughed.

Nobody stopped Wayne, nobody but himself, and when he finally stopped crushing her face it was unrecognisable, the only trait that was recognisable was her clothes, she was a girl because of her breasts, and that she had raven black hair.

Wayne panted like he had just ran a couple of miles. Cassie lifted her foot off the dead girl's neck. Harry and Nathan looked at Wayne and the dead girl. As Harry continued to laugh, Hunter kneeled down and began to strip the girl of her clothes and belongings.

At the sight of their friend taking those items, Cassie began to help Hunter remove the girl's clothing while Harry and Nathan began to collect the dead father's clothes and items. Wayne did nothing, still refusing to look at anyone. He didn't even look at the girl he had killed.

The four teenagers stripped the body of everything, jackets, pull over shirt sweaters, snow pants, jeans, boots, underwear, bra, socks, everything. Nothing went to waste.

After taking everything that the two dead bodies had once owned, the robber that had both saved and killed them announced to his group.

"Good haul guys." As he slung the Abercrombie and Fitch jacket over his right shoulder along with Becky's grey pull over shirt sweater, t-shirt, bra, pants and underwear while Cassie held the backpack she previously owned.

Harry and Nathan had divided the spoils among each other, but Nathan carried the backpack.

"Yeah." Harry laughed.

"Sure." Nathan said with just as much less enthusiasm.

"Right." Cassie said, much more cheerful then the other two.

Hunter nodded, feeling pleased with their haul. He then turned back to his friend that had killed the daughter.

"Come on Wayne, let's get out of here."

Wayne, having not moved a muscle since he had killed Becky, ran his right index finger under his nose and sniffed before he replied weakly.

"Okay." He then turned around and started to follow his friends back to the Ford.

Hunter and Cassie entered on the right side of the truck, Harry, Nathan, and Wayne entered on the other. Nathan, Wayne, and Cassie got in the back seats while Harry took the driver's seat and Hunter took that front passenger seat before the two front seat passengers slammed their doors shut.

When Harry had settled into his seat, started the truck up by attaching the two exposed wires together, and started to drive away, Hunter presented the spoils they had gotten. Everyone looked cheerful, that they had gotten supplies, and Hunter felt that it was a really good haul, but three of the five teenagers had bittersweet mixed in with their happiness, though they varied from person to person. They were still short on food and medicine, but they got a stock load of spare clothes, which would come in handy if anything happened, which he knew would.

As Hunter changed from his cheap coat to a dark green Abercrombie and Fitch jacket that was meant for a girl, and set aside the dark blue American Eagle field jacket for Harry.

Nobody looked back to the two dead bodies. Nobody but Wayne, who only felt remorse for the steadily disappearing man and girl in the rear view mirror. Wayne was clearly the one who looked the most affected by the encounter.


End file.
